Remove Disconnected Exchange 2007 Mailboxes

Introduction

Exchange retains disconnected mailboxes in the mailbox database based on the deleted mailbox retention settings configured for that mailbox database. After the specified retention period, a disconnected mailbox is permanently deleted from the Exchange mailbox database.

You can also permanently delete a disconnected mailbox at any time by using the Remove-Mailbox cmdlet in the Exchange Management Shell. To do this, you need to set the Permanent parameter to $true when you run the command.

If you want to permanently delete the data within the mailbox database for a previously disconnected mailbox, you must use the StoreMailboxIdentity parameter with the Remove-Mailbox cmdlet. You can use the Get-MailboxStatistics cmdlet to determine the value you need to supply to the StoreMailboxIdentity parameter for a disconnected mailbox. For an example of this scenario, see the third code example in the reference topic Remove-Mailbox.

2 Comments

Very helpful post. I would only add one thing. If your database name is made up of more than one word, type it out exactly but enclose it in single 'quotation' marks. Example your database name is Mailbox Database so you would type it 'Mailbox Database'

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